Enterprise Unix Roundup: Virtually Free – page 2

In Other News

» We first heard about XGL last December, when noted KDE developer Aaron Seigo made a fairly persuasive complaint about how this X server implementation of the OpenGL graphics engine on his blog.

Siego lamented, and rightly so we might add, that XGL was something that would be a real benefit to the open source community and users of the X Window system, but one company was keeping the source code all to itself. That company, it seemed, was Novell.

We used the word "persuasive" because something got Novell to change its mind. This week, the Waltham, Mass. company released all of the XGL code under the GPL during the XdevConf event. And there was much rejoicing.

Siego himself was pretty pleased, according to an article on NewsForge. "In the end, Seigo said that he is 'really happy with the way it turned out. We're getting a great contribution from Novell back into the community, the community is able to participate in it again, and we've got a commitment from them that it's going to be developed in the community.'"

» Novell seems to be making an extra effort lately to get the word out about desktop Linux. The XGL move gives a lot of cred to the graphics end of the desktop. After all, the 's 3D capabilities already give Linux a big step up on that other desktop operating system.

But computer users don't live on sharp graphics alone. What makes an operating system more usable are the applications that can run on it. But which ones? Novell has initiated a survey to determine which applications could be ported to Linux to make it that much more attractive to new users. The survey simply poses the question: Which app do you want ported to Linux?

On January 1, the first results of the survey were released, and the most requested application was QuickBooks, which makes sense, given that most small businesses feel prevented from making the shift due to the perceived lack of an accounting program for Linux (GNUcash and Money Dance apparently need to get their marketing mojo working).

Later, however, new results from the survey were published, and Photoshop was now the most requested application to port. This struck us as very strange, since The GIMP is a pretty well-known alternative to Photoshop already in use by many graphic artists.

We can all theorize on what makes one app more desirable over the other, but now the question becomes, will the vendors of these applications get the message and start putting their efforts into actually porting something over to Linux? We wait with baited breath.

» We like Zimbra, the open source collaboration server that promises to make a big splash in the messaging arena. Lots of other folks like it as well, even though it's been in beta for a year. But no longer.

This week, Zimbra Collaboration Suite 3.0 went gold, and now the application will have a chance to prove itself even further. Though Zimbra will work from a client point of view on Microsoft Windows desktops, it is not currently available for Windows Servers and will not challenge Microsoft Exchange directly on Windows. But another Exchange server alternative on Linux will eventually give Exchange a run for its money. » The news was not good for high-end hardware vendor SGI. As part of a regulatory filing to the SEC, the company warned that bankruptcy might be the unfortunate year-end outcome if it can't get things turned around.

SGI put much of its business hopes into the Altix line of Itanium-based servers a couple of years ago, shifting from a pure IRIX play to Linux and IRIX, a move seem by many at the time to be pretty smart. But the Itanium platform never quite got the foothold among high-performance users as expected, and buying a big yellow blade cluster from SGI that ran Linux didn't make sense when you could get the same performance numbers from commodity boxes running Linux.

» Finally, we feel it noteworthy to mention that the Open Source Business Conference will be held next week at the Argent Hotel in San Francisco (Feb. 14 and 15). The OSBC is sort of an executive-level version of LinuxWorld. Conference organizer Matt Asay told us that attendees will find it "useful to see how far the open source business community has come."

Open source business is indeed at the heart of this conference, especially the open source part. Linux does not always hold center stage at this event, especially now that Sun Microsystems has OpenSolaris to show off. It'll be interesting to see the play between these operating systems.

Elsewhere in the Corral

Recent relevant articles about enterprise Unix

• Where will your business lunch receipts be in 30 years? Networked Linux storage is enterprise ready to sort that out.

• Morganville, N.J.-based Ranch Networks announced the development of security code for Asterisk, the open source VoIP project that allows enterprises to combine Asterisk with Ranch appliances. Datamation takes a look.

Tips of the Trade

With virtualization all the rage these days and with x86 hardware virtualization support coming soon from both Intel and AMD, the days of slow, resource-intensive, software-only virtual machines are numbered. Hardware support improves both performance and security. VMware, the grandmother of virtual computing on x86, has released some new products and technologies, including some interesting freebies.

VMware Server beta is a free download for running Linux and Windows servers side-by-side. This is quite liberating for the hardworking system administrator, as she is no longer bound by the physical limitations of drive partitions or available hardware because VMWare uses virtual partitions and emulates common hardware.VMware can take on a variety of tasks:

• Run several different servers on the same machine
• Set up complex network scenarios for testing and development
• Create clusters on a single machine

The upgrade path from VMware Server to the ESX or GSX server is not too bad, if you decide you need to travel it. The VMware Server must be removed, but your guest operating systems can remain in place.

VMware has also released the free VMware Player beta, for running different operating systems on a workstation.

VMware offers minimal free support for VMware Server, limited to the online knowledge base and documentation. Support contracts are available, from $350 to $400 per year. No support contracts are available for VMware Player. Both support both 32-bit and 64-bit platforms.

Installing and configuring VMware, and installing additional operating systems, is a bit more difficult than clicking an "install" button. So VMware has made available a number of pre-fab virtual machines to get you up and running with a minimum of hair-pulling. You can get Red Hat, Ubuntu, and Novell Linux, and application servers like IBM Workplace Services Express and BEA WebLogic Platform, and the MySQL and Oracle databases all rolled-up and ready to use with either VMware Server or Player.

Beware of licensing restrictions, however. If the guest operating system or application you want to run has a restrictive license and requires registration keys and other horrid things, it's no different than installing it stand-alone on a physical machine. Visit VMware.com to get downloads and more information.

Carla Schroder writes the Tips of the Trade section of Enterprise Unix Roundup. She also appears on Enterprise Networking Planet and Linux Planet, covering Linux from the desktop to the server room. She is the author of the Linux Cookbook and the upcoming "Linux Networking Cookbook."